Without You
by angstkitten
Summary: songfic, oneshot. haoxanna, so read it if you like it. anna leaves, and hao doesn't know if he can go on.


WITHOUT YOU

OOH! My first HaoxAnna fic! YAY! I hope you like it. Song fic to Lonestar's 'Without You'. Angst/Romance and PG-13. One shot, I think. --chelsea

* * *

Anna stared out the window of the train. She was headed home, tears filling her eyes. She knew no one was expecting her, but she would be welcome. Mari was there and, if no one else, she would help her little cousin. 

Anna hated needing them. She liked to think of herself as independent and strong. But she wasn't. She was broken and despondent. Alone in the world.

* * *

Fire, smoke, bad joke. 

That's what my life's been turned into.

Hurt, cry, pray to die.

That's all that I've got left to do.

* * *

Hao sat on his bed, pillow in his hands. He brought it to his face and screamed with all his might. Yoh's head perked in the living room, but he didn't move. Hao's voice carried through the Inn, but the other inhabitants ignored him. He'd been like this for the last two days. No one knew what was wrong, but no one dared to enter his room and ask. 

Yoh suspected it had something to do with Anna, but he wasn't sure. He'd heard her sneak out the night Hao started being crazy. No one else knew she was gone, they just thought the two of them were fighting. That had happened often enough. No one wanted to look in on Anna, afraid of the wrath that would be brought down on them.

Yoh and she had broken off their engagement just over a year ago, when Anna discovered that she truly loved Hao. Yoh had been glad they could both be happy, but his gut had told him it wouldn't be all flowers and butterflies for them.

Hao screeched at the top of his lungs into the pillow. "Why!" He screamed and howled so the others wouldn't hear the tears trailing down his cheeks. "Kill me now. Please, just kill me!" he moaned. "It's a bad joke. Just stupid Yoh screwing with my head," he tried to convince himself. "Oh, but Anna would never go for it!" His throat was throbbing and scorched from the wails. Hao stood up and began to thrust things around his room, not for the first time that afternoon.

Yoh hung his head slightly, and turned back to the book he was reading.

* * *

Without you. 

Every time someone speaks your name,

I feel my heart go up in flames.

Nobody should have seen me cry,

Or wipe the teardrops from my eyes.

I'm the only one that I've got left

And I can't live with myself

Without you.

* * *

Mari ran through the empty house, having seen Anna coming up the walk, screeching the news to no one. "Anna's back! Anna's here! Mari will get the door!" As Anna walked up the steps, her cousin threw open the door. "Anna!" she cried, overly enthusiastic. Then she saw the lonely look in her eyes. 

"Oh, Anna. What is wrong?" she asked. Anna didn't answer, and Mari took her arm. "Come in. Mari will make willow tea. That will help." Mari led her into the house, and Anna dropped her things in the living room. They walked to the kitchen and Mari quickly put the tea on.

Sitting down, Mari asked what had happened. Anna didn't want to talk about it, and she hung her head. "Anna, please tell Mari what is wrong. She only wants to help." They sat in silence until the tea pot began to whistle. Mari got it and served the tea. "Is it Hao-san?" she asked quietly.

Anna looked at her, the hollowed look exchanged for one of pain. Her heart burned, and she gasped, trying desperately not to cry. Mari put her arms around her younger cousin.

"Don't despair," she whispered. "Mari is here. She will protect you. She will help you."

Hao was lying on his bed, frustrated. "Why aren't I dead yet?" he muttered. A cry came from downstairs, and the idiots below him began chattering away like the morons they were. Tears slipped past his clenched shut eyes once more, but he had nothing left to throw. Everything in the room had been shattered or torn to shreds.

His door opened, and he sat up, rushing a hand across his face, wiping it dry. "What?" he snapped bitterly. Yoh walked over.

"Anna left," he said.

"Yeah, I know."

"A couple nights ago. I heard her go."

"Great. Can you leave?" Hao was feeling irritable, and was ready to chuck his brother into the wall. Yoh held out his hand, a pin in it.

"This is all she left." Hao picked it up. It was the pin he'd bought her on their first date. It was small, but beautiful. It was for her hair; a small sakura blossom made of diamonds and sapphires. He had nearly choked at the price but got it anyway. He choked now, seeing it.

Hao closed his hand over it, but his twin grabbed his arm before he could throw it. "Don't," he said. Hao stared at his younger brother. "Hao, please don't."

He didn't. He lowered his arm and opened his fist, releasing it. There was a butterfly of rubies, and he had accidentally crushed the end of a wing. Two of the jewels had come away, slicing into his palm. Blood shone in his hand as he dropped the pin to the bed. He raised his arm, the small puddle running down his arm and he made no attempt to stop it.

Tears slipped down once more, and he merely tried to hide them unsuccessfully. Yoh reached up and gently wiped them away. Hao backed away from the touch. "No. It's my fault," he murmured.

* * *

Guilt, shame, I'm to blame. 

For all the pain I put you through.

Cold, yeah stone, mind blown.

There's nothing left for me to lose.

* * *

Yoh sat with Hao as long as he would allow, but when he violently ordered him out, Yoh went. Hao threw himself onto the bed and howled again. Guilt filled his heart and soul, dragging him down, into the depths of Hell. He couldn't believe that she'd left. That he'd been cold enough, stupid enough, to lose her. 

They had always been cold to others; their pasts wouldn't allow them to be otherwise. But with each other they could be open. But Hao had ignored that and shut her out, ashamed of his past, his life, himself. And she was gone.

"I'm to blame," he whispered when the screams died down again. "I ruined everything. I couldn't be happy. I couldn't _let go!_" Hao punched his bed, but wasn't satisfied. He stood and hit the wall. He did it again and again, kicking, punching, screaming swears. "Anna, why? I'm sorry!" **I have nothing left**, he thought. **Nothing to lose but life.**

* * *

Without you. 

Every time someone speaks your name,

I feel my heart go up in flames.

Nobody should have seen me cry,

Or wipe the teardrops from my eyes.

I'm the only one that I've got left

And I can't live with myself

Without you.

* * *

Anna was lying on her old bed when her mother walked in. "Oh sweetie," she said, coming to her side. "Mari told me all about it. What happened?" 

"I don't know," Anna sobbed. "He wouldn't open up. He was so distant. I couldn't stand it! It hurt when he brushed away my questions, my worries. Mother, I didn't know what to do." Mrs. Kyouyama wrapped her arms around her daughter.

"Shh…" she coaxed. "Alright. It's okay. You didn't do anything, so don't cry." Anna managed to keep control over her tears, wishing the world would just collapse so she could die.

"Mother… Can I be alone? For a little while?" Her mother complied and left, leaving the door open only a crack. Anna went to it and snapped it shut. She flung herself onto her bed, thinking she'd made a horrible mistake.

Hao was flinging himself around, destroying the room, the window already broken when he'd thrown his lamp through. He was swearing, mostly at himself, making Tamao and HoroHoro feel unsafe in their rooms on either side of him. That night they slept in the living room.

Hao screamed through the night, keeping the entire neighborhood up, and no one was pleased. "She's gone!" Hao shouted, purposefully out the window. "I don't have anything, and I can't live without her," he whispered, suddenly quiet. "I can't. I can't." **I can't go on!** He slumped against the wall as the sun rose, finally exhausted. Silent tears streaked his face and he slipped away, sleeping for the first time since she'd told him she was going.

* * *

Time goes by. 

Still, I'm

* * *

Somehow, the world continued to spin, the universe to orbit, and time went on. Days became weeks that became months. Anna struggled miserably to get along with her family, which wasn't easy. Hao stayed, trapped within himself, in his room for four months, leaving only for moments at a time to cross the hall to the bathroom, allowing only Yoh in to feed him. And more often than not he refused to touch it. Once, Ren had said that the two of them may as well have been married and gone on a honeymoon. HoroHoro disagreed. "Dude, there's about four indents the size of Hao's fist, and at least one hole, in my wall. He's there." 

Finally, Hao was sick of feeling sorry for himself. He got up one morning and carried himself down to breakfast. Tamao nearly dropped the pan holding the eggs when he walked in. Everyone looked, his hair hanging lower than most remembered it. Yoh grinned, and Hao sat down as though nothing was different. But in his heart he knew it was. Anna was missing.

When the third month came, Anna had herself convinced: he was never going to come looking. He didn't care. So she stopped caring. At least, she pretended to. She missed everyone in Funbari, but she couldn't go back. Hao had to take her home. **I have to know he needs me.**

* * *

Without you. 

Every time someone speaks your name,

I feel my heart go up in flames.

Nobody should have seen me cry,

Or wipe the teardrops from my eyes.

I'm the only one that I've got left

And I can't live with myself

Without you.

* * *

Two days after Hao came out of his room, he was walking out the door. "I'll be back," he assured Yoh. 

"Where're you going?" he asked.

"To get Anna," Hao answered before leaving. The pin was in his hand, the two rubies reattached. He caught the last train and rode through the night, thoughts crowding his mind, not allowing him to rest. **I hope she's there**, he thought. **That she hasn't moved on. That she still wants me, no, _needs_ me.**

Anna looked out her window in her silk nightie at the large moon hanging low in the sky, surrounded by the stars, like children around a story-teller or caretaker. She sighed quietly, wondering where Hao was. What he was doing. **At the Inn, most likely**, she thought bitterly. **Laughing it up with the guys, like nothing happened.**

Suddenly, she was mad. She wanted to throw something, but there was nothing she _could_. It frustrated her, and she fell onto the bed, hot tears running past her eyes.

* * *

Without you. 

Every time someone speaks your name,

I feel my heart go up in flames.

Nobody should have seen me cry,

Or wipe the teardrops from my eyes.

I'm the only one that I've got left

And I can't live with myself

Without you.

* * *

Anna was crouched over, planting vegetables in her mother's garden, irritably cussing out the sun on her back and the wind blowing her hair into her eyes. She sat back on her knees and pulled her hair back, tying it together again. She let go and began to lean forward, attention back on the vegetables, when a pair of hands touched her head, fitting something into place. 

Nobody but _nobody_ touched Anna Kyouyama's head except herself, her mother, and Hao. She whipped around, knowing it wasn't her mother; she had gone to town. Anna opened her mouth to chew out whichever family member had forgotten the rule, but instead of seeing Mari or her father, it was Hao, smiling shyly down at her.

* * *

Whoa, whoa. 

Without you,

O-oh.

Without you,

Whoa, whoa.

Without you.

* * *

Anna stared up at him, shocked. He gave her his hand and she took it, Hao bringing her to her feet. He pulled her into a hug before she remembered she was angry. She pushed him away gently. "What are you doing here?" she asked, trying to sound upset, but sounding more relieved than anything. 

Hao's tender smile widened. "I can't live without you," he whispered. Anna smiled back, tears shimmering beautifully in her eyes.

"Oh, Hao," she said, throwing them both into another hug, the pin he had put in her hair falling softly to the ground as their lips came together.

* * *

Without you.

* * *

YAY! I DID IT! 

That's like the first time I've _ever_ made a song fic work! Yay me! Please, please, pleeeeeaaaaaaassssse review! I'm begging!

I wrote this in one (1) day, too! --chelsea

p.s.- if you want a sequel, ya gotta lemme know!

Also, I don't own Shaman King, the characters mentioned in the story, or the song 'Without You'. I've already said that it's Lonestar's.


End file.
